The problem with the current buildings is that they were designed to house two councils, Cardiff and South Glamorgan. Hence you have two council chambers, two sets of committee rooms etc etc - and not much office space.

Structurally, City Hall had a lot of money spent on it prior to the European summitt in 1998 so it's in good shape but it's basically a public building with very little space for back office functions. I presume the idea is to concentrate all the admin at the new public services hub while using City Hall as the public interface.

Kyle wrote: The last plot next to HMRC though is semi-lined up for being part of this 'public sector hub' as well as any remaining space in the HMRC building. I'm sure I read that when the HMRC deal was done.

I'm not sure that's right, Kyle. IIRC, there was mention of other UK Govt funtions co-locating with HMRC to form a UKG hub in Cardiff. That's why the hoardings around the site refer to it as a UK Government project not a HMRC one. The Wales Office are certainly re-locating there and other UKG departments with a presence in Wales are considering doing the same.

Given the willy waving that goes on between the Welsh Government and the UK one I think the chances of any devolved institutions co-locating with UKG departments are pretty much close to zero.

I'd have thought the Callaghan Square site is the likliest option now that Cardiff Met have opted for Central Quay for their new campus.

That's a fair point actually. I'd prefer Callaghan Square, although there's plenty of planned office space at John Street as well.

Looks like Travelodge are planning to expand their Cardiff Bay hotel. Interesting, as i thought that some of the artists impressions of the new arena seemed to suggest that the existing Travelodge would be demolished.

HalRobsonKanu wrote:Looks like Travelodge are planning to expand their Cardiff Bay hotel. Interesting, as i thought that some of the artists impressions of the new arena seemed to suggest that the existing Travelodge would be demolished.

Planning permission has been granted for a shipping container to be used as a coffee shop for up to three years adjacent to the old Cardiff bay station building. So looks like the application for a mixed use unit won't happen for some time.

MattW wrote:Planning permission has been granted for a shipping container to be used as a coffee shop for up to three years adjacent to the old Cardiff bay station building. So looks like the application for a mixed use unit won't happen for some time.

But this does seem to indicate that the original building will be brought back into use - which is good news! Although 3yrs seems a long time maybe they are getting the original back in good shape, and use, and then phase 2 is the new build on the side.

https://www.businessleader.co.uk/bristo ... iff/45270/Nice article with a positive view on Cardiff's prospects and the envy from Bristol. There should be a decision soon in Bristol on the location of their Arena, which is proving to be a very contentious issue. Hopefully they can keep arguing over it with plenty of delays so we can get ours built first

It's surprising to see that Bristol relies "scraps" from Cardiff That's not a good sign to come when the hotel occupancy rate here finally increase over the next ten years. Bristol have been trying to build this thing for years, but then again so have we. Personally I can't see Bristol building one if we build ours first, and vice versa. The advantage that Cardiff has is that we already has an experienced company to run the thing, nobody is complaining about the location (transport issues pending) and Welsh Government will involve itself.

Just shows the potential of the city really, Bristol has a much bigger population.

Lewisbeecham wrote: Just shows the potential of the city really, Bristol has a much bigger population.

That sort of depends on how you draw the boundaries.

The city of Bristol itself has a poulation of around 460,000 while the total urban area (as defined by the ONS) is 724,000. The equivalent figures for Cardiff are 335,000 and 477,000 (2011 figures).

However the total population of the the Cardiff city region is 1.5m compared to the 1.2m who live in the West of England combined authority area. To my mind the larger regions are more relevant when assesing the viability of developments like arenas.